


Sabbatical

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Children, F/M, Family, Post Bartlett Administration, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2019-05-15 23:41:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: It was just that, sometimes, a guy needed a break.





	Sabbatical

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

  
Author's notes: CJ/Danny, CJ/OMC, Danny/OFC; alternative universe, total fantasy (or is it?)

Rating Adult - adult issues, consensual activity, and such and such

Spoilers through end of series; possible spoilers for "Holding Hands on the Way Down"

Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul

Feedback and criticism always welcomed  


* * *

**Saturday, June 29, 2019; Kensington, CA; 1:30 PM PDT**

"Enjoy this next week with your family, Paul, and once again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

Paul Reeves smiled at the man at the front door, one of his fellow ministers.

"It's okay, Denny. I'm just glad that your broken wrist and Angie's cuts are the extent of the injuries."

Denny Harkness was supposed to pick up the on-call phone from Paul Friday afternoon, but he and his wife had the misfortune to be in the middle of a dense fog related multicar pileup on I-5.

Paul sighed as he closed the door. He was as sure as ever of his vocation and he had no problem with being called upon by people in need, but there were almost always at least some church members who felt that their relatively large monetary contributions gave them the right to expect that the parish clergy were at their beck and call for every last little thing. It might not be right, but Paul was going to enjoy being "off the clock" until July 7. Deborah, Tom, and Joey were in the lower 48 for several weeks, and would be staying in California for a week before flying over to Jersey and then up to Maine for Tom's cousin's wedding. Derrick, Natasha, and the twins had come up from San Luis Obispo and Alicia's father had flown in from Princeton. It was good to have four generations under one roof.

As Paul shut the door, he heard a big "Yes!" from Joe and a groan from Derrick. It was a Yankees-Cleveland game, so Paul assumed that New York had either scored or prevented a score.

CJ, Deborah, and Natasha were enjoying themselves at a day spa. Cathy and Carly Branson, twins from Mary Mag, were in the house to help with the two infants, one toddler, and to keep an eye on Caitlin and Dansha. The menfolk had watched some of the matches from Wimbledon earlier in the day and had moved on to the East Coast.

As he turned to walk to the family room, Paul heard Pat's raised voice.

"Geez Louise, Caitlin, I *said* I was sorry!" Then, in a slightly quieter voice, "But why in hell you can't put the damned seat down yourself, I'll never know."

Paul laughed to himself as he heard Joe, Derrick, and Tom laugh out loud in masculine appreciation of the boy's frustration and moved to join them. However, he stopped in mid-step as Pat asked, "Should I tell Papa that I swore?"

Paul moved back, but not before Joe caught his eye; Paul shook his head from side to side.

"Nah," Joe said to Pat. "We've all been there." Derrick and Tom nodded in agreement, taking their lead from the group's eldest. Even Hershey lifted his head in assent.

Had Pat seen that Paul had heard, Paul would have been compelled to be the parent, to set the right example about what words should and shouldn't be used, and how a man treated the women in his life with respect. But being the heavy could get heavy at times and this was one time that Paul wanted to step out of the role. Between Derrick and Deborah and now Pat, Caitlin and Dansha, he had been performing those duties for thirty years, with at least fifteen more to go. As Paul had mentioned before to Frank Muñoz, he really couldn't even be a typical spoiling grandfather because of the closeness in age between his second set of kids and the first round of grandkids. Not that he regretted for one second his promise to Danny regarding Pat and Caitlin, his love for CJ, and the joy of Dansha.

_**Brocchi's Cluster** _

" _Hey, it's not like I was jumping up and down in delight about dying when my kids were 3 years and 3 months, respectively," Danny muttered. Then he lined up his shot and putted to make eagle. Now he was only two shots behind (or was it ahead?) of Hugh Stewart._

It was just that, sometimes, a guy needed a break.

Paul walked into the family room.

"So, what's the score? And, as long as I'm up, can I get anyone something to drink?"

**5:00 PM**

"Well, you ladies certainly look refreshed and revitalized!" Tom said as CJ, Deborah, and Natasha came into the kitchen through the door from the garage.

"We are," Deborah replied, kissing her husband. Natasha smiled and then made a beeline for the guest wing. This had been the longest she had left her babies alone and she was anxious to check on them.

CJ was putting away the ice cream she had picked up for supper; Paul came up behind her and kissed the side of her head.

"Did you enjoy yourself, sweetheart?"

"Of course." CJ turned around. "By the way, I ran into Lois Rinaldi. She told me how happy she was for you and asked me if I was excited. What gives?"

"I tell you later," Paul replied as Caitlin and Dansha came running in from poolside, followed by the Branson girls.

"Cathy, Carly, thank you so much for your help this afternoon." Paul handed each girl $30.00 and shook his head when the young women tried to tell him that he was being way too generous.

"Dad, would you like me to drive the girls home?" Derrick asked.

"No, I'll do that. Why don't you start the grill and work with your grandfather on the ribs, since I'm not privy to the secret sauce?"

The two girls followed Paul out of the kitchen and through the garage. He headed for the van at the curb then changed his mind. It was a beautiful afternoon with no clouds and no wind. It was much too nice for sensible, stodgy transport.

"Ladies, if you don't mind, we'll use the Bonneville." Paul opened the passenger door of the vintage red convertible and helped Carly and Cathy into the rear seat.

**10:30 PM**

Paul looked up as CJ's shadow fell across the pages of the journal he was reading, then smiled and took off his reading glasses as she took the magazine from his hands. He reached for her hand and pulled her onto his lap.

"You smell good," Paul said, taking in the combined scents of her face soap, the remnants of whatever potions the day spa had used on her body, and the minty leftovers of toothpaste.

"Hmmm", she commented, planting little kisses on his face while playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Then she moved slightly away, and draping her arms loosely around his shoulders, looked into his eyes.

"So, when the wife of my husband's department chair tells me that she is happy for me and asks whether I'm excited, I can either give her a blank look, or act quickly and pretend I know what she's talking about. Luckily, eight years in the west wing of the White House provided me with plenty of training in the latter. What gives, Paul? Why the secrecy?"

"It's not secrecy, sweetheart. It's just that there hasn't been time to tell you, and also, it's not that, well, definite.

"Next year, starting in June, there's going to be a new collaborative effort on a compendium of ethical thought and issues through the past three millennia. A while back, David mentioned that I was way overdue for sabbatical and that he was nominating me for consideration to the group. And for some reason, the committee picked me."

"How wonderful!" CJ kissed him vigorously. "But what's not definite about it?"

"Well, it's quite an effort, and would involve a year in Italy, over in Bologna, at the university. It's just not - "

"Not what? The experience for the kids would be great. Once we're over there, we'd be in easy reach of France, Germany, even Turkey. And I love Italian food, not to mention the wine."

"But your work, CJ," Paul protested.

"What about my work? By the way, if you are overdue for a sabbatical, so am I. We started our jobs here at the same time, Mr. Doctor Reverend Reeves," CJ reminded him. "The program is well established; it pretty much flows easily."

"It's not just the program, Mrs. Doctor Professor Reeves," Paul answered, "and you know it. You're on an increasingly accelerated track up the administrative ranks, and being away from Berkeley for a year could easily derail it. And no way in hell am I going to go eight time zones away from you and the kids."

"Yes, I enjoy working with higher administration, but I'm not actively seeking advancement, Paul. We both said, when we started this, that we were going to keep a balance between work and life, Paul. Which is why you turned down requests to chair the department for the seminary, which is why we both keep our hours about half to three-fifths time. I haven't forgotten that."

Paul kissed his wife before responding.

"I know, and I'm happy with what I am, what I – what *we* have, sweetheart. But I would be lying by omission if I didn't say that it's different for you. You seem to thrive with the extra responsibility, with the bigger picture. And you do it without taking away from the kids, from me, from our friends. I stand in awe of that, CJ. It gives me pleasure, and not just a little pride, to see you managing everything so well. I don't want to stand in the way of your success."

_**The Meadow by Rainbow Bridge** _

" _Well, shut my mouth!" Esther Dawson exclaimed. "I do believe that's the first time I ever heard that boy admit that a woman was better at something that he was. Will wonders never cease!"_

_Danny laughed briefly with the others and then looked at the woman by his side._

_Alicia managed a little smile. "She is good for him; he's so much more mellow than he was with me."_

_Danny put his arm around her. "Well, he's older now, and age does have a way of making a man see things in perspective. And although he is right about her being good at managing and administering, she does sometimes get a bit carried away, get a bit too involved. He needs to give her a lot of rope, but he needs to keep hold of that rope, make sure she stays grounded._

" _And who says change is a bad thing? Look at you. Try to tell me you ever put your hand on Paul's thigh in public back in the day."_

_Alicia looked down at Danny's lap. Her fingers were maybe three inches away from the slight bulge in his shorts._

" _I guess," she said with a giggle. "How about?"_

_Danny smiled, stood up, and held out his hand. The two of them casually walked toward Cassiopeia's Chair._

CJ lifted herself up, and, straddling Paul's legs, turned to face him, her arms still loosely draped around his neck. She stared right into his eyes.

"Yes, I know it. Yes, I know that I'm good at it. But you know what? I've been there, done that, got the M&M's with the presidential seal. I have nothing left to prove, to the world, and more importantly, to myself. I ran the White House. I established the foundation. I won the fucking Nobel Peace Prize. If an administrative title comes my way, yeah, I'll do it and I'll throw down just like I did in the past. But I also have you, and the kids. And right now, spending a year in Italy sounds like something I want more.

"So come Monday morning, you march right into Dean Rinaldi's office and you tell him that you will be taking the sabbatical. And I'll put in the paperwork for mine. Got it?"

For once, for now, he acquiesced to her leadership. "Yes, Ma'am", Paul replied, then accepted the voracious open-mouthed kiss CJ ground into his face.

Paul relaxed as CJ's lips moved from his mouth to his nose, his eyes, and then to his neck. He sighed as she continued down his chest, circling his navel and then, trailing lower as she undid the buttons of his pajama pants. CJ took him in her mouth and, responding slowly but surely to the wet warmth, Paul thought to himself that it was good, sometimes, to be totally receptive, to just enjoy the loving actions of one's mate. Since his days at Dartmouth, he had known that a woman was a complicated creature, that her physical and psychological erotic needs were intrinsically entwined. He had known that the effort put into bringing both aspects of feminine sexuality to their fullest extent resulted in a much better sexual experience for himself as well and had, over the years, gladly done everything in his power to accomplish that for the women with whom he had mated, especially his wives. But he was only human, and at times, took selfish pleasure in being serviced as CJ was now doing. She had slipped off his lap and was now kneeling between his legs, her hair spread out over his groin and he reached down to gently stroke that silken coverlet. God, it felt so good.

Too good.

There had been no more incidents of non-performance since that one time at the beginning of the month, but neither had there been any "second helpings". If CJ continued what she was doing to its natural conclusion, she could very well be disappointed afterwards. He reached down to caress her jaw.

"Sweetheart, if you don't stop now, I might not be able to -".

"Wksbgkmt", she interrupted.

"What?"

CJ lifted her head.

"We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. And there's always turn-about, Mr. Doctor Reverend Reeves."

Then she recaptured him and Paul succumbed to her demands. Sometimes, it was nice not being in charge, he thought.

And then he lost all thought.

**3:00 AM**

Paul slowly came to consciousness with the scent of his wife's body twitching at his nose. Without opening his eyes, he realized that he was lying on her torso, just below her breasts and above her waist. One of CJ's arms was on the back of his head.

Earlier, after events in the chair had reached their natural conclusion, Paul had led CJ to the bed and had repaid her twice over for her ministrations. Then about ninety minutes later, they woke up within seconds of each other, both aware of the rock steel pressing against CJ backside. Their coupling had started sweet, slow, and languorous, but had taken a turn for hard and swift as they approached climax. It had obviously been exhausting; witness the fact that he had fallen asleep on his wife's body rather than gathering hers in his usual protective embrace.

Paul sighed with satisfaction in knowing that, at least for now, their days of second helpings were not a thing of the past. He started to lift himself, intending to raise himself to the pillows and pull CJ into his arms. Then he changed his mind.

The day had been full of mini-sabbaticals from his normal duties and responsibilities. And although Paul was happy in his role as husband, father, head of family, and minister – the compleat grown-up, as it were – , the break had been nice. He would continue to enjoy being held and protected by CJ for a while longer.

Paul fell asleep dreaming of the next week and the even longer sabbatical that awaited their family.


End file.
